Ancestral land refers to ‘land of ancestors’. That is the land occupied by ones’ forebearers for generations and left something behind of value for current and future generations. There are usually contestations as to which ancestors the land

belongs because of the history of internal migration and of displacements by stronger nations (tribes).

Namibia is moving towards an urbanised country. This is illustrated by the fact that at independence Namibia was only 28% urbanized by 2011 urbanization has already grown to 42% and current projections are that by 2020 urbanization would by 66% and more than 70% by 2030. As the urban population is growing the need for serviced land and housing is also growing. As Namibia has failed to respond through appropriate strategies to facilitate this change in the human geography of the country it resulted in the growth of poorly serviced informal settlements.

The webinar Land Rights for Slum Dwellers in the East Indian State Odisha: Making technology work for the urban poor took place on 14 February, 2018. 

The webinar discussed anecdotes of the land rights policy in the state, application of innovative technology, processes and partnerships in the project execution and best practices followed in gaining rights for slum dwellers. 

This report provides a brief summary of the webinar dialogue and the main points that emerged.

El Asentamiento Ka`atygue, se encuentra localizado a 30 km del distrito de Santa Rosa del Lima, en el Departamento de Misiones ubicado en la Región Oriental del país, distante a unos 248 km de Asunción, Capital de Paraguay.

A Serrinha, trata-se de uma área de terra da União Federal, grilada e denominada Fazenda Serrinha, na Gleba Garimpo. A área foi ocupada em 15 de maio de 2012, por 34 famílias sem-terra da região de Araguaína/TO e Barra do Ouro/TO. A Serrinha está situada na Gleba Serrinha, no município de Barra do Ouro, distante 12 km do centro urbano e aproximadamente há 130 km de Araguaína.

O acampamento de “Sem Terra” ( Assentameno Alegre), do Pov. Alto Bonito, município de Riachão, Maranhão – Brasil, foi criado em 08 de junho de 2003 por trabalhadores rurais sem terra com o objetivo de conquistar uma área para o sustento. Após alguns meses decidiram acampar as margens da Rodovia Federal - BR 230, entre os povoados Alto Bonito e o Povoado Posto Fiscal.

This working paper by Tikvah Breimer previously of the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) and Mark Napier previously of Urban LandMark, analyses the provision of core housing in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, specifically taking into account the residents' response to the state's delivery of core housing. It aims to explore to what extent the South African government's approach to providing large-scale housing addresses the relevant demands in the context of rapid urbanisation.

These documents summarise Urban LandMark's approach to incrementally securing tenure in informal settlements. This approach emphasises practical mechanisms that allow land rights to be upgraded over time. It has been developed from a range of activities, including input from research papers, a considerable number of interviews, and the testing of different processes with municipalities. The second report focuses on the notion of local land offices and their potential for promoting tenure security and incremental tenure processes. 

This document, written by Josette Cole of the Mandlovu Development Trust, explores the intended and unintended consequences of home ownership for poor citizens living in formal settlements in post-apartheid South Africa. It focuses on New Crossroads in Cape Town, a relatively small, urban community of 20 000 people.

The aim of this policy paper is to present successful approaches to secure land tenure rights in rural and urban areas. To support future programmatic decisions by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), this paper focusses especially on impacts and good practices. It discusses examples from the German technical cooperation but also includes good practices and impacts achieved by other development partners.

This case study in the World Resources Report, “Towards a More Equal City,” examines transformative urban change in Ahmedabad, India, by analyzing the land pooling and readjustment mechanism called Town Planning Scheme (TPS). This paper reviews the evidence on whether the TPS mechanism has enabled transformative change with equitable outcomes in Ahmedabad City—and if so, how.